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The University of Maryland
created a set of three elective web-based geriatric nursing
courses, which fit nicely into their already web-based RN-BSN
curriculum. The program's students, who are required to take
nine elective web credits, and who work primarily in long
term care, are eager to take this trio of courses. Anne Marie
Spellbring, the nursing school's established geriatrics expert
and a certified end-of-life-care trainer, engineered creation
of these courses.
Processes of Aging provides an in-depth analysis
of specific concepts related to alterations in health of frail
older adults and incorporates benchmarks of Best Nursing
Practices in Care for Older Adults, developed by the Hartford
Institute for Geriatric Nursing. End-of-Life-Care
incorporates selected concepts from the End-of-Life-Nursing
Education Consortium (ELNEC) curriculum, with a focus
on palliative care and pain and symptom management. Leading
and Managing in Long Term Care focuses on the skills
and principles of management necessary for developing leadership
roles in long term care settings.
The courses employ a variety of teaching strategies, such
as movie and video analyses, case studies, hyperlinks, poems,
interactive diagrams, PowerPoint presentations, virtual field
trips and discussion questions. Taught in sequence, the curriculum
brings "real world" examples to the students via
web format.
For example, in Processes of Aging, a "virtual"
field trip to a long term care facility provides the students
opportunities to examine the Eden Alternative, an innovative
long term care model, where seniors' lives revolve around
close and continuing contact with plants, animals and children.
The students hear from residents, families and staff about
this philosophy of care, and subsequently share impressions
on the discussion board.
End-of-Life-Care
features a "virtual" palliative care interdisciplinary
team meeting. Students experience this unique aspect of end-of-life
care planning, by observing virtual team members explaining
their unique roles, and then engaging in interdisciplinary
discussions. Students then discuss hypothetically, how they
might implement such teams in their own work settings.
Leading and Managing in Long Term Care takes the students
to a "virtual" nursing home, with "virtual"
residents and staff. Each student assumes the unit's nurse
leader role, and relative to one of the virtual residents,
solves a delegation dilemma, develops a plan of action for
a sudden change in resident status, and creates a restorative
care plan. In addition, each student reviews a survey of a
nursing home of his/her choice, and writes a quality improvement
plan for a nursing problem identified in the survey.
With her Hartford funding, Dr. Spellbring
brought an instructional designer on board. She believes strongly
that input from this individual is crucial for creating, implementing
and sustaining these geriatric web courses. She feels that,
with the combined expertise of instructional designer and
faculty content experts, the sky's the limit for establishment
of these web based geriatric nursing courses.
- Syllabi
- Lessons
Learned
- Student Work
- Principal Investigator Contact
Information:
Spellbring, Anne Marie, PhD, RN
Associate Professor
655 W. Lombard Street, Ste 375C
Baltimore, MD 21201
(410) 706-5261
Spell@son.umaryland.edu
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